New Candidates Video Debate Aims to Take Money Out of Politics

SEBASTOPOL, Calif., March 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Informing to Empower has launched the Candidates Video Debate, a non-partisan democratizing media platform.

The mission of the non-profit CandidatesVideoDebate.com is to bring transparency, accountability and integrity to an electoral process now corrupted by political advertising paid for by corporate and special interest donors.

Our free website does this by creating easily accessible, two-minute videos of every candidate answering every question asked of them during an existing congressional debate. This empowers citizens to use their social networks to easily share short videos of a candidate speaking about where they stand on important issues. 

All videos are unedited except for start and stop times, and the questions are taken verbatim from the debates themselves, providing a pundit-free forum to help voters make better-informed decisions.

The Candidates Video Debate launched with this conservative Texas Republican Primary in Houston (which features Pierce Bush, grandson of H.W.) and this liberal Democratic Primary in San Diego (which features City Council President Georgette Gomez. A dozen other primary debates for contested congressional seats are planned by June.

"Our objective is to take money out of politics without new laws or constitutional amendments, which cannot be passed without the consent of the politicians in power who, by definition, benefit from the current donor-corrupted system," said Informing to Empower founder Jonathan Greenberg. 

Greenberg is an award-winning investigative journalist and new media innovator. He was a Web 1.0 pioneer, whose company, Gist.com was one of just 14 websites to win the First Annual Webby Award in San Francisco in 1997.

"The Candidates Video Debate informs democracy by providing citizens with the unfiltered positions of their congressional candidates," says Informing to Empower board member Liz Abzug, the founder of the Bella Abzug leadership Institute. "Voters can now learn about congressional candidates without the influence of pundits or the paid political ads that dominate the airwaves day and night."

"Our intention is to take money out of politics and build to build a true democracy by empowering voices that might not be heard otherwise," explained Kalyanee Mam, a Sundance Award-winning documentary film director who was recently named Executive Director of Informing to Empower.  "This year, more than ever, we need to wake up and remember what our country truly stands for--a government by the people and for the people."

Contact: Kai Lewis, 707-890-6509

SOURCE Informing to Empower